Tag: Very Short Fiction

* sorry about the delay in releasing / finishing the rest of the story, but I have been pretty busy lately. So at long last here is the last part of the ‘short’ story…..

Jimmy suddenly woke up with a start on his living room couch. He had no idea how long he had been sleeping. And he had no idea why he had slept on the couch so early in the morning. It was afternoon now and Jimmy was a little off still. He soon regained some of his senses and started to slowly remember what had happened earlier. He remembered the rats had eaten his magic muffin, or at least the most of it. What they had left Jimmy himself had finished off, and that was when he passed out on the couch. He still felt a little sickly and his stomach was jumping in cartwheels inside of him. He sat up and soon after this he felt just a little better. And then he started to remember all of his fears about the rats growing to gigantic proportions. And then he suddenly felt sick again. He knew that he needed a game plan to deal with this situation. He was getting ready to put on his shoes when he remembered that his left foot had grown larger than his right foot. His left foot was the only thing that had grown so far. He thought about it for a while and then decided to try again to put on his shoes. But it was not no use, because he could not fit the shoe onto his overgrown left foot. So instead he put on flip flops, which still fit.

While in the middle of thinking about what to do about the giant rat problem, he suddenly saw a rat run across the kitchen. It was still normal sized, but looked aggressive somehow. Jimmy Footballs was still concentrating on this when his phone rang. It was his landlord. He was late with the rent and he had completely forgotten about it. He made some excuse to the landlord and hung up. But then he realized that he did not have enough money to cover the rent for this month. Mainly because he had spent so much money on the magic muffin. Suddenly a new plan formulated in his mind. Why not just move out and leave the apartment to the rats? He considered this strategy and realised that he did have other places he could move into, even on short notice. So he began to box up as much of his stuff as he could. He only packed his most important stuff. He would leave the food and other crap that he really didn’t need behind, he decided. He made a phone call to a friend who owed him a favor and asked for help in moving. And it was agreed. Then he called another friend in another town who had room for a roommate and asked if he could move in. The answer was yes, much to Jimmy’s relief. Jimmy sat back in the couch and was well satisfied that his game plan was a good one and that it would be successful. But then he remembered that he still had not considered his uneven sized feet problem.

After a short period of thinking about it, Jimmy realized that his only alternative was to buy a pair of shoes of the larger size. So he headed to the local shoe store and soon found a suitable pair of shoes that were the larger size of his left foot. And he bought the shoes. A little while later his friend helped him pack up his stuff and after moving most of his things, drove him to his new apartment. For the next few weeks Jimmys life slowly returned back to normal. The only thing that still wasn’t right was his left foot was still longer than his right foot, but this did not bother Jimmy as he had gotten used to it by now. A little more time went by. And Jimmy’s life was by now back to what he would call normal. Then one night Jimmy was watching a news program and was a little intrigued when he saw a teaser for a story about giant rats that were taking over buildings in a nearby city. Jimmy wondered if this had anything to do with his apartment. So he waited for the story and was surprised to see that the very building that he used to live in was in the story. He was even more surprised to learn that the rats had grown to about the size of large dogs. The one photographed by this news channel was about the size of a German Sheaperd. And Jimmy knew that he was ultimately responsible for this infestation of giant rats.

Jimmy Footballs slept very well and had some really unusual dreams too. In his dream, he ate the magic muffin and immediately grew to over ten feet tall, way taller than he wanted to be. And also in his dream he just kept growing and growing and growing, until he was over fifteen feet tall. Too tall to even get out of his apartment, let alone to drive his car or play his guitar, which looked like a child’s little toy in his hands. He realized that this was becoming a nightmare because he could not get out of his apartment, he couldn’t even stick his head out the window because it had grown too fat. He needed to crawl on his hands and knees just to move about in his apartment and even then he was barely able to do it. He dreamed that he fell into a deep sleep and when he awoke he heard the faint sound of someone knocking on his apartment door. The knob seemed so small to him that at first he was not able to turn it, but with some practice and work, he was eventually able to do it. The door swung open and he saw a very small looking figure looking up at him. This figure then got a very frightened look about their face and screamed, then turned and ran away. Jimmy started to sweat profusely. He then started to panic. It was just then that he awoke from his dream in a panic and in a puddle of sweat as well. He wiped the sweat from his brow and slowly raised himself up in his bed. He looked around his bedroom and everything seemed to be right, just the right size. He then looked down at himself and realized that he had not grown to over fifteen feet tall, but was still around five and a half feet tall. At first he was a little relieved, but then he was a little disappointed that he did not seem to have grown at all, even though he had already eaten a sizeable portion of the muffin.

Jimmy went through his normal morning routine, the usual, the three S’s. But after all of that he was getting dressed when he realized that something was not right, his left foot seemed to be a few inches longer than his right foot. And he knew that his feet had always been symmetrical and even, but now that did not appear to be the case. The more he studied his left foot the stranger that it seemed to him. And now he compared it to his right foot again, side by side. And sure enough it was at least three inches longer than his right foot. Jimmy scratched his head and thought about all of this for a few seconds. He wondered if first his left foot would grow and then maybe his right foot would grow and then to be followed by the rest of his body. That must be it, or at least he hoped that that was it. He put his right shoe on first, he always put his right shoe on first. Then he went and tried to put on his left shoe, but the fit was really tight. Too tight. He could not squeeze his left foot into the shoe. ‘Oh Well’, he thought. Who needs shoes anyway. So he went barefoot this day. It was no problem because it was a Saturday and he had nowhere to go and really nothing to do, so being barefoot would not be any kind of a problem. He just hoped that his right foot would grow to match his left foot by Monday when he would have to return to work, otherwise he would have to buy a pair of shoes and only utilize the left one. So, Jimmy made his way to the kitchen to have his breakfast, and he did so barefooted.

He nearly spewed when he fixed his eyes on the large box that contained the magic muffin. He could very clearly see that some rats had eaten several holes into the box. He was shaking his head back and forth as he approached the box and continually saying “no, no, no”. He arrived at the box and slowly peeled back one of the top flaps holding the box closed and glanced inside. He realized that his worst fears were becoming realized before his eyes. Rats had indeed gotten into the box and not only that, they had eaten away the most majority of the magic muffin. just then he began to think about what could happen if indeed the magic muffins actually would work. He could go from having an average rat problem to having an enormous rat problem, the kind of problem that one would very often see in those cheesy horror movies from the sixties and seventies. He went from being very angry at the rats to then being very scared that maybe they would grow to a monsterous size. And rats that are that large would obviously have the run of his apartment, he would simply have little or no say at all. All of this thinking about very scary things had given Jimmy quite an appetite, even though the thought of rats eating his muffin had destroyed his appetite only seconds earlier. Down at the very bottom of the box was a tiny little piece of the muffin left, just enough for breakfast, Jimmy thought. So he picked it up and looked at it. He could not see any rat crap on it or anything like that, just little rat teeth marks on it. So, ‘what the hell’, Jimmy thought, and he ate the magic muffin down in just three quick bites. He let out an enourmous belch and suddenly felt very queezy and quite ill as well. So he went to his living room to think about what he should do next…..

Free Preview of Chapter 1 of ‘Looking for Area 420’ by Shane Zentz

Enjoy the free read

…
And if interested in publishing this or reading the whole book, then contact me @
shane AT shanezentz.com

The book is around 450 pages or so and took me about a month to write. I think that the book is pretty good but I don’t know if it is good enough to be published or not. So I’ll throw the first chapter out there and see if I get any good feedback.

So, here is most of the first chapter……..

enjoy…

‘Looking for Area 420’
Chapter 1:”Waking from a dream”…..

The sound of the siren of a fire truck rudely roused Kurt Larsen from a deep, relaxing sleep. His eyes were very unfocused and itchy as he began to peel them open, only to be greeted by the intense burning sun of mid afternoon. Taking a few more moments to gather himself he tried in vein to remember what had transpired the night before. But his memory was off on a break or something because he couldn’t remember anything, at least not yet. He wasn’t worried because he knew that eventually he would remember what had happened the night before. This was just the way that his memory worked; it just took a little while to warm up, like an old worn-out car. Kurt Larsen is a skinny white dude with dark curly hair in his late twenties who lived in Brooklyn and had lived there his whole life. The day slowly began to come into focus. He began to remember some of the events that occurred the night before. Mainly he remembered sitting on the couch with his best friend Jamie Glossman, doing what they usually do every day, smoking pot and watching TV. The way he felt this afternoon, Kurt believed that he and Jamie must have smoked about a quarter of an ounce of weed last night, but he wasn’t sure. Then he remembered that Jamie had said that he didn’t feel like going home, so he crashed on his couch. So Kurt rolled over and slowly got out of bed, headed out of his room down the hall, rubbing the sleepiness from his eyes the whole way. When he arrived in the living room, he saw Jamie on the couch still fast asleep.

“Dude, get up”, Kurt yelled as loud as he could! “It’s almost 1:30 in the afternoon”, he said while checking the time on the VCR. Slowly Jamie opened his eyes which looked bloodshot and tired. He looked as if he was having one of those moments when you first wake up and you don’t know where you are. Kurt could almost hear the gears of his mind grinding, just struggling to piece together the clues that would yield the answer to the perplexing question “Where am I, How did I get here, and Why”? Then Kurt could also almost see a light going off in Jamie’s eyes, so he knew that he must have found the answer. Jamie was trying to figure out why he was waking up on Kurt’s couch and not in his own bed, when he remembered that he was a little too “baked” to make his way home after smoking pot and watching TV until about four in the mourning. Jamie was also a skinny white dude, and like Kurt he was also in his late twenties, but he had long and straight blond hair. He pondered what Kurt had said, was it really 1:30 in the afternoon, and if so, why did Kurt let him sleep so late? So he decided to ask Kurt, “Dude, why did you let me sleep so late”? “Relax, man I just got up a few minutes ago myself”, Kurt said with a grin. “Damn dude, it’s already hot in here, it’s going to be a roaster today”, Jamie said while looking at the afternoon rays of sun flowing through the window. “What is the master plan for today”, Jamie asked? “What do you think, we are going to get stoned and hang out at the mall as usual”, Kurt said. “Then later on tonight we are going to get stoned again and watch some more TV, only this time we should invite our girlfriends over too”, he continued. “That sounds like a plan man”, Jamie agreed. “But we smoked all of our weed last night dude”, Jamie stated. That seemed to take a while to sink in for Kurt because he seemed to be in deep contemplation, or at least he was trying to think if what Jamie was saying was true or not.

“No dude, I know I have to have some weed somewhere around here, or at least some roaches to at least tide us over until I can score some more”, Kurt said while just thinking out loud. “I don’t like the thought of thinking about not getting stoned today, at least a little bit”, Jamie pondered while also thinking out loud. “Yea man I agree with you, and even more”, Kurt said while heading back to his bedroom. Jamie followed and when they arrived at Kurt’s bedroom both of them began searching through Kurt’s well-known hiding places to see if they could find any pot. But after an intense and long and thorough search, they found nothing. Not even any roaches. Not even any stems and seeds. Nothing. Just rolling papers and lighters but no filler. “Man this sucks”, Kurt stated emphatically! “Yea, what are we going to do”, Jamie wondered? “Well we will just have to see if “Twaif” has any of that killer weed left to sell us”, Kurt said while gazing out the window of his bedroom. He was referring to Gordon Twaifigto who was a small time pot dealer in Brooklyn, and he lived in the building opposite to the building that Kurt lived in. “Man I am not even going to waste my time trying to call that paranoid nut, he never answers his phone”, Kurt said while shaking his head at the thought of having to deal with Twaif. But then he remembered the great pot that Twaif had sold he and Jamie the other day, it was so much better than his usual lo-grade crap that he knew it would be worth dealing with that nut just to score some more of that outrageous weed. “Let’s get cleaned up and grab a quick breakfast and then we will pay Twaif a little visit”, Kurt said. “I hope that he still has some of the same weed left that he sold us the other day”, Jamie said to Kurt. “Yea, me too”, Kurt agreed.”What about bread man, I only have ten dollars left for the week”, Jamie wondered aloud. “Yea,that could be a problem dude, because I only have about five dollars on me”, Kurt added. “Maybe Twaif will let us put some weed on our tab like he did that one time man”, Jamie said while looking like he had just solved the world’s most serious problem. “I doubt that one, because that was when he was just trying to get rid of some rank weed that nobody else wanted”, Kurt said. “Remember that shit man, all it did was give us headaches, but we still smoked all of it”, Kurt continued. “Yea dude that was all too crazy man”, Jamie stated. “Twaif will only take cash for the good stuff and I think that our tab is full anyway man”, Kurt said. “Well let’s just get cleaned up and eat breakfast and get ready for the day and then we will try to think of how we can score some dough in order to get some more pot dude”, Kurt said and Jamie seemed to agree. So they both went about getting cleaned up and then met up in the kitchen where they were going to have breakfast and later a meeting of the minds to come up with a solution to their lack of cash flow problem.

During a hearty breakfast of pop tarts and cheerios Kurt and Jamie began to think about the problem that they had, mainly the lack of dough that they needed to buy some more pot. “Can’t you borrow some bread from your dad”, Jamie asked Kurt? “Well I doubt it because he knows that I would just use the money to buy pot with”, Kurt said and then he thought how odd it was that he was a stoner and his father was a cop. “What about your brother man”, Kurt asked? “Yea, he was telling everyone in our family how he made a bunch of rich bastards even richer with some shady stock trades and then he supposedly received some giant bonus which some family members began rumoring that it was at least seven figures, so maybe he would loan me some quick cash, or maybe even just give me some cash”, Jamie stated. “Well what are you waiting for, give him a call”,Kurt ordered. With that, Jamie went to the phone and dialed the number of his older brother.He stood there listening to the phone ring just waiting for his brother to answer. “What’s up brother”, Jamie almost yelled emphatically when his brother finally answered the phone! Jamie rolled his eyes and Kurt could tell that he was getting a lecture of one kind or another from his brother, and then. “Yes, I know Rick, I’ll try to call more often, but you know how it is,when you keep as busy as I do, then you lose track of time and before you know it a month has gone by”, Jamie said while shaking his head. “Look, I hate to ask, and you know that I hate to ask, but I am in kind of a pickle money-wise and I know that the one person that I can count onto help me out when I am in some kind of jam or something is you bro, and man am I in a tight spot now”, Jamie asked his brother in a kind of low tone of voice. “It’s just that rent is due and a bunch of other bills are coming due and with me being laid off and everything, money is extremely tight right now and I know that you are a big shot on wall street and you probably have money to burn, so I just need to ask if you can help a brother out right now”, Jamie asked? The tension was thick like gravy in the air as Jamie and Kurt both waited for the reply from Jamie’s brother. Kurt looked at Jamie and tried to guess the response of Jamie’s brother by Jamie’s reaction to it, but he had a good poker face and Kurt could not tell if the response was good or bad, positive or negative. He continued waiting and the tension just grew.

“I was thinking maybe a couple thousand dollars would be a huge help”, Jamie said with a pleased look on his face. Then he continued, “That would be great”. Just then Kurt knew that the answer was yes and that they would probably get enough money to buy enough pot to last at least a month. A couple thousand dollars can go a long way in a economy like this, Kurt thought. “Yea dude that would be great man”, Jamie said happily. “Alright I’ll see you then”,he continued and then hung up the phone. Jamie then turned to Kurt who was waiting for the word and he said, “He said he would give me two thousand dollars to help me get through the month”. “Wwwwwoooooooooooooooooooooo, hell yea”, Kurt yelled! “Oh yeah”, Jamie added!”But I’ll have to go to his office today before five to pick it up”, Jamie explained. “No problemo bro, well just take the subway to the city and well be back in time to buy a butt-load of pot and get well good and baked man”, Kurt said. “Sounds like a plan dude”, Jamie added. And with that the problem seemed to be solved and the two set out on foot to the subway to pay Jamie’s brother a visit and collect some greenage in order to buy some other greenage later on.

While Kurt and Jamie were on the train Kurt looked at his watch for an unusual amount of time. “We only have about two hours before five, I hope we have enough time to get there man”, Kurt said. “Don’t worry we have plenty of time”, Jamie stated. “Wow your brother really is coming through for you dude”, Kurt said. “Yea, I know, that is how it is in my family”,Jamie said and continued, “Do you remember that episode of The Brady Bunch where Greg though the was all that and then some more and he wouldn’t listen to his parents or anyone else who gave him advice, he just went out and bought a car on his own. Then later on he finds out that it is a real lemon, just a real piece of crap, and at first his parents and his brothers and sisters laugh at him and his piece of crap car and just give him a hard time in general, but eventually they help him out and they all pitch in and fix up the car so that it looks like a total classic, but the car is still really a piece of crap, so he gets rid of it, but in the end he learns a really valuable lesson and he starts acting like less of a jerk”, Jamie asked while judging the reaction of Kurt to see if he was following where he was going with all of this? “Yea, I remember that”, Kurt said while nodding his head. “Well, that is how it is in my family, not that we are all goody-two-shoes like the Brady Bunch or anything,but we might rip on each other once in a while but we also help each other out when it is necessary”, Jamie explained. “Yea man that is real cool, I wish it was like that in my family”, Kurt said.

Jimmy Footballs recruited the help of a few friends to help get the giant muffin back to his apartment. It was a strain and a struggle but with a great effort the stinky muffin was home. Jimmy also needed the aid of a gas mask every time he opened the box that contained the muffin. He had convinced his friends that he had purchased a used washing machine because he did not want them to know that he was going to eat this smelly muffin in order to grow taller. And they seemed to believe him, although they did comment on the funky smell eminating from the large box. Jimmy later went to the liquor store to buy some strong spirits that he knew he would need in order to eat the foul smelling muffin.

After returning from the liquor store, Jimmy quickly took a few drinks. He drank enough to start to get a nice and mellow buzz on, not flat out drunk, just a numbing high. Enough of a high to be able to stomach the stinking muffin. So then he took out a plate and a fork and a knife and made his way over to the big box. He opened it and the pungent smell slapped him square in the face causing him to back up and almost causing him to fall over backwards. He regained his composure and told himself that it was only a muffin so how bad could it be? He then cut a good portion from the giant muffin, about the size of a large steak. He noticed how it was large and heavy but it was also spongy and pretty easy to cut. Although when he cut into it it seemed to stink even worse. Jimmy walked over to his small dinner table and sat down with plate in hand and a very unsure look on his face.

Jimmy steadied his nerves with another drink. He then built up his courage enough to be able to cut into the muffin that lay before him. He cut off a reasonably sized bite, not too large and not too small. He examined the piece of muffin that was nailed to his fork carefully. Then he smelled it and when he did he noticed that it did not really smell that bad if he smelled it close up, but as soon as he pulled it away from his nose the horrible smell returned with a vengance. He closed his eyes and opened his mouth and as steadily as he could he raised the fork to his mouth. Then he inserted the fork with the piece of muffin on it into his mouth, being careful not to touch his lips to the muffin itself. Then he suddenly bit down onto the fork and just as quickly pulled the fork out of his mouth, leaving only the muffin in his mouth. He chewed quickly and almost out of control, as if that would somehow make it better. When he was through with the wild chewing, he commanded his throat to quickly and powerfully suck the food down into his stomach.

Jimmy waited to see if he was still alive. And sure enough he was! He waited still a few more minutes to see if he would have any kind of reaction to eating the bite of the stinky muffin, but he still felt fine and above all he was still breathing. He considered the taste of it and realized that it really wasn’t half bad, or at least not as bad as he had expected. Once he realized that it was not killing him and that it did not taste half-bad, he devoured the rest of the muffin on his plate as quickly as he could. Then he finished his whiskey as well. He walked confidently to his sofa and sat down and turned on the TV. Minutes later he still felt fine, but did realize that he was getting very tired very quickly. So he turned off the TV and walked to his bedroom, where he practically collapsed onto his bed and fell immediately into a deep sleep.

“Are you sure that those muffins will make me taller”, Jimmy Footballs asked? “Yes, of course they make you taller”, Jack Toebeard replied. Jimmy scratched his chin while thinking over the whole situation. His friend Jerry had told him about this Jack Toebeard who made some special muffins that were said to make a person grow taller. Jimmy was trying to remember exactly what Jerry had said. “These muffins made a friend of mine go from five feet and four inches tall to six feet and five inches tall in just a couple of days”, Jerry had told Jimmy. “But you will have to buy the special muffin in order to grow a lot taller in a short period of time”, Jack said causing character to snap out of his mini-trance. “Oh, I see”, Jimmy said. “And what is the deal with this special muffin”, Jimmy asked? “Well it is a magic muffin, and it takes a long time to make and it is a difficult process, but the results are almost unbelieving”, Jack said. “And how much will this magic muffin cost me”, Jimmy asked? “$500”, Jack said stoutly and confidently. “Wow, that is one expensive muffin”, Jimmy said emphaticly. “Well if you want to grow taller, then I would think that it would be worth it”, Jack said. “You are right”, Jimmy said. “And if I buy this magic muffin today, when would it be ready”, Jimmy asked? “You buy it today, it be ready one week”, Jack said. Jimmy thought about it and realized that he was going to have to pay the $500 and give it a try. At five feet and two inches tall he always felt somehow less than others who were a more normal size and he always wanted to find a way to grow taller. Even though everyone, including doctors, had told him that it would be impossible for him to grow any taller, especially at his age. So he writes out a check for $500 and hands it to Jack, who tells him to come back in one week to pick it up. So Jimmy then leaves the store.

Jimmy’s week went by very slowly. And each day convinced him more that he had done the right thing by buying the muffin. He could not wait to see it. He could not wait to eat it and see if it would really work. He was still skeptical, early in the week while waiting for baker to create this magic muffin. But as the week went on he began to believe more and more that it just might work and that it just might do what Jack and Jerry told him that it would do. So the night before he knew that the muffin would be ready he had a difficult time trying to get to sleep. He was so excited that the next day he would finally get his magic muffin. He did eventually fall asleep but he dreamed some very strange dreams. Very strange dreams indeed! Dreams filled with flaming cocktails, purple clouds, green cats, and spoongy, multi-colored, quick-sand like floating carpets. Very strange dreams indeed. Jimmy woke up in a haze of confusion, but soon regained his senses and remembered that today would be the day that his magic muffin would be ready. Jimmy quickly ate breakfast and then took an even quicker shower and flew out the door on his way to Jack’s.

When Jimmy arrived at baker’s he saw that his store was a little more busy than normal. So he found a place in line and waited, just like everybody else. The line was moving pretty slowly and it took an agonizing fifteen minutes or so for Jimmy to get to the front of the line. Once there Jack saw him and said that the muffin was ready, but asked him to wait until the store cleared out of customers. So Jimmy waited some more. Finally after about another twenty minutes the last customer picked up his order and left, leaving the store empty except for Jimmy and Jack. “Follow me to the back”, Jack said. Jimmy followed Jack to the back of the store which contained a lot of industrial baking equipment.

“It’s right over here”, Jack said pointing to a box that was about the size of a washing machine. “Where”, Jimmy asked? “In this box”, Jack said. Then Jack opened the top of the box and looked in with a smile. “Feast you eyes on this beauty”, Jack said with a grin. Jimmy couldn’t imagine how a muffin would be in so large of a box, so he was very curious to see what was in it. He walked closer to the box and pulled his head up to the top of the box and looked down into it. The muffin was about the size of an oven and was a dark brown color with wierd colored spots evident in the top of it. When he saw the size of the muffin, he almost choked! When he got a whiff of the smell of it, he almost puked! “Whew, is that one big muffin and boy does it stink”, Jimmy exclaimed! “Well, that is what makes you grow, so it has to stink like that and it has to be that size to have an effect”, Jack said while laughing. “Do I have to eat the whole thing”, Jimmy asked? “Yes, of course you do”, Jack replied.

Bad Benz

by Shane Zentz
It started to shake. Only just a little at first, but then, more and more. The air wistled through the cracks in the windows and windsheild. The lights of the others passing lit up the interior. The whole body shook with a dip in the road. The suspension was suspended up and then suspended down, and on so down the road. The smell of burning oil and rotten old metal filled the air inside the car. More shaking and more shaking, and I keep saying, “Just a few more miles, just get me home”! A strange noise eminated from the rear of the car. Somewhere from the rear. An odd noise. A noise never before heard, from this car or from any other. Was it a sign? Was the car finally dying? Would the car make it home? There was that noise again. Only a little louder this time. More threatening. Another light on the dashboard. A new warning light this time. One that has not come on before. One whose meaning was completely unknown. Was it a serious issue or something minor? Did it have something to do with the new noise coming from the backseat? More cars pass by as if the Benz was standing still. Still more cars go by. The Benz is still going, very slowly and very, very unsurely, but still going. Somehow still going. Only a few miles to home now. “Only a little more to go now, just keep going”, I say to the Bad Benz. More smoke coming from the rear of the car and the engine seems even more sluggish now. Sputtering every so often as if trying to take it’s last exhausted breath. How much further could it go? Would it make it home?